An unintentionally amusing and revealing news report comes from the Yale Daily News. (Note: at the time of this blog item's publication, the YDN server is down.) It seems that applications are down almost ten percent this year for next year's freshman class. The rest of the Ivy League schools reporting data so far all show increases. So what could be the cause of this worrisome reversal of previous increases?

"It's possibly because of the fact that our selectivity rate kept getting lower and lower," [Yale president Richard Levin] said. "People are not applying because the odds are small." [....]

Yale College Dean Peter Salovey emphasized that Yale is still in an extremely competitive position despite the decrease in applications.

"We have to remember that last year's number was record-setting," he said. "I'd be much more concerned if there was any evidence that our pool was not of its usual high quality or if our pool was less diverse, and neither of these seem to be the case. The goal here is to make sure we have an outstanding class of 1,300 or so students." [....]

"All I can note is that application numbers fluctuate," [Dean of Admissions Jeff Benzel]  said. "Last year we were up by almost the same amount over the prior year that we are down this year from last year. We did not have an explanation for the surge last year, and we can't explain the return to something close to the prior year's level this year."